Local Voices: Jan. 2 edition

Letter to the editor for the Jan. 2 TribLocal print edition from Orland Park and New Lenox.

Sports struggles

Chicago thinks it is a sports town, but if you look at the records, it falls a lot short in deserving that reputation.

Of the teams that have played in championship games for Major League Baseball for the last 40 or so years, Chicago only had one team: the Chicago White Sox.

In basketball, except for the time of Michael Jordan, there have been very few times that Chicago had anything to cheer about.

Look at football. The one time in recent times that Chicago had cause to cheer about football, it was in the mid-1980s, when there was Walter Payton and a Super Bowl championship.

Hockey has given Chicago something to cheer about with two recent national championships. Unfortunately hockey does not have the following that baseball or football does. But if those teams don't do better, Chicagoans may shift their loyalty to hockey.

Perhaps Chicago would be better in the baseball area if one of the two teams were to move to another city.

— Jerry Cavender, New Lenox

A good wage

Tribune columnist Steve Chapman demonstrated a simplistic comprehension of what he termed the "logic of economics" when it comes to economic reality in "Economic reality and the minimum wage" (Commentary, Dec. 15). Certainly on what even Chapman calls an elementary level, lower prices result in higher demand, while higher prices do the opposite.

Maybe he can tell us how great was the demand for goods as prices plummeted during the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, as well as during other poor economic periods, demand dropped along with prices, production and employment.

During times of prosperity, prices generally increase along with demand, production and employment.

We can wait for the business cycle to work its magic hand before the economy begins to recover, during which many millions suffer the consequences. Or the government can act to protect underconsumption by guaranteeing higher minimum wages, and acting to promote both public and private employment.

When people work, and work for a good wage, they spend money, and demand, production and employment all eventually increase.

Indeed, it is the overwhelming opinion of economic professionals today that there is little job reduction from a higher minimum wage. A University of Chicago Booth School of Business survey of leading economists agreed four to one that the benefits of raising and indexing the minimum wage outweighs the costs.

We have an excellent opportunity to judge the effects of a higher minimum wage just by comparing economic conditions among the 50 states in the union. Though not always true, in general, states with higher minimum wages are doing better than states with a lower minimum wage.